Capital Region firefighters aid post-hurricane recovery effort

A special water rescue team from three local emergency service departments are credited with saving 16 adults, 7 children, and 3 animals in the Freeport, Long Island area during and immediately following Hurricane Sandy.

Along with this team, several other local fire and police departments have been deployed in the past week and many are planning to go again for ongoing relief efforts.

Eight members of the Melrose Fire Department got back Monday afternoon after a 72-hour stint in Long Island's Nassau County to assist wherever they could and they'll likely be going back this weekend, said Chief Dominic Pasinella, noting that their name was put back on the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control list of assisting departments.

"Most of the firemen down there are victims themselves so there's no one to answer the emergency calls," he said.

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The group of volunteers, who left Thursday, checked homes along the shore for people who possibly needed help and helped fight fires that occurred for multiple reasons, like when power was restored or people were not hooking up generators correctly, Pasinella explained.

"We made a difference," he said of the crew, who ranged in age from 18 to 45. "Even though everyone who volunteered had families and jobs to go back to, they were reluctant to leave since there is still a lot to do."

Pasinella said that in the week since Hurricane Sandy swept through there was progress made in the Freeport, Long Island area with more and more people getting power and businesses reopening slowly. But, he said, the biggest challenge is still the lack of available fuel. The Melrose team brought their own diesel when they drove down, though the local town highway department was providing fuel for emergency vehicles.

"There was a lot of destruction," he continued. "Homes were destroyed. Furniture was floating in the streets with power lines down everywhere. There were carbon monoxide issues and fires. It was a desperate situation."

The Melrose crew responded to 13 calls in the three-day span, including a couple of car fires and a house fire Sunday morning.

The Combined Type II Swift Water Rescue Team, made up of Clinton Heights, Melrose, and Waterford-Halfmoon fire department members with an EMT from Nassau, got back Tuesday after the Hurricane from their deployment during the disaster in Great Neck, Oyster Bay, Baldwin and Freeport in Long Island.

"People did not evacuate when they were supposed to and then they were surrounded by five feet of water," said Ed Pratt, a spokesman with the Clinton Heights Fire Department in East Greenbush.

In one instance, a firefighter was in chest-high water rescuing a 3-year-old about the same age as the firefighter's own child. "That really touched him," said Pratt. Overall, he said the crew was "exhausted" after the deployment.

Pasinella added, "People are in survivor mode, sleeping in their cars and turning the engine on when it gets cold."

Pittstown and Pleasantdale fire department members left this past Monday morning to help with recovery efforts, Pasinella said.

"And now a nor'easter is headed for Long Island again," Pratt said about this week's weather forecast.